Printers and plotters are known in the art and include those made by Hewlett-Packard, Canon and Epson, amongst others. In the discussion that follows, printers and plotters are referred to collectively with the term “printers”. Problems associated with current printers and print head arrangements include that the print head may run out of ink while printing, the print head nozzle may become clogged and the ink expulsion mechanism may not fire, amongst other malfunctions. Evidence of such malfunctions are usually detected when the printed document is pulled out of the printer and examined visually. At this point it is too late for appropriate correction. Some types of electronic sensing are known in the art, such as techniques for detecting when an ink expulsion mechanism has not fired. These techniques, however, are limited in scope and do not, for example, detect when a nozzle is clogged or unclogged.
A need thus exists to detect print head malfunction in such a manner as to eliminate or minimize corruption of a printed image. Early detection of a malfunction permits preventative steps to be taken such as print head replacement or software based compensation within the firing algorithm, etc.